November 20, 2008

Pollution

This is a topic that came up in one of a meeting.
Someone wanted to have a celebration at their home and had an emotional reason for the same. She fervently pleaded for a 2-hour once in a year. Typical middle class brahminic coward he was - typical 'paappaan' whom carenonidhi admonishes often - instead of confronting the lady with his problems he talked of an advocate who came and complained to him about the noise and said he could file a nuisance case against the lady and her family. The reason was pollution. Noise pollution.
Well, am not going to talk about the community pollution this gentleman was prepetrating, and not the noise pollution the lady was accused of (no silly meaning please...). We have worse noise pollutions around to which we turn a deaf ear - literally. Like the air horn in all those "socially aware, socially responsible" IT companies buses that run on our city roads, like the air horn used by even government buses, like the multi-decibels generated by the diesel generator set, just outside the hospital, like so many instances.
Coming back to the meeting, another person got reminded of the pollution by this hospital and brought up the issue. The pollution caused by the adjoining hospital - Isabel Nursing Home in Mylapore. It was shocking to hear about this. This is a hospital of repute, about which I had been amazed in the past. Such disrespect to people around was and is intimidating.
The hospital waste disposal system chimney height is not enough to let off the burning waste fumes very high up in the air. Instead, the fumes are reaching to even first floor residents in our building. The intensity is so much that people have permanent breathing problems and the balcony is useless to dry clothes, as the black soot settles on it easily.
When this was brought up, I was quite taken aback. Because I have seen lot of things being very efficient in this hospitale, with very good doctors and a haven for lot of poor people. What was even more shocking is that including the gentleman who hid behind an advocate for filing a nuisance case - who is also being affected because of this - had not made legal representations to the hospital but had been enduring this for long.
Even more to come. Another lady, then narrated how things used to much worse earlier, when aborted foetuses wouldnt be disposed off properly, and the pit was not closed inside the hsopital properly, that often scavengers would come to feast on them, and drop off waste parts in the balcony of these people. It was downright horrifying, scary, nauseating!

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